QVC's Global Supply Chain Management

QVC is the worldÆs leading television-based retailer, with 77 million viewers a day and $3.5 billion in annual sales. The company doubles its size every 5 years (Maloney 2001). With its formula for high-quality products, soft-peddling show hosts, and superb customer service, QVC is the reigning king of shopping channels. Although QVCÆs customers are more familiar with its products and its friendly hosts, the supply chain management apparatus that supports the shopping process is the real superstar; without this system, QVC could not achieve the dazzling success it continues to enjoy in marketing its huge volume of products. The rapid fulfillment of mega numbers of orders, its state-of-the-art distribution network, and the management of the warehousing process are all essential behind-the-scenes keys to QVCÆs success.

There are several vital components to QVCÆs global supply chain management. One of these is the warehouse management system (WMS) that ensures ample stock of a product is available before it is presented on air. Advance ship notices alert the warehouse of the arrival of incoming stock at the facilityÆs 59 receiving doors. Palletized items are unloaded by walkie-rider trucks, and extenders reach into the semis to unload any unpalletized cartons, which are stacked onto pallets for storage. The WMS creates a bar code license plate that is then attached to each pallet and hand scanned to link it to the stock-keeping unit

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lly positioned close to interstate highways and designed with exceptional capacity: a 1-million-square-foot building with 600,000 square feet of storage and a two-level mezzanine with 180,000 square feet for processing returns. Rocky Mount also handles QVCÆs Internet orders. Rocky Mount receives orders every 2 to 3 hours and processes them in 4 to 12 waves per shift under the direction of the WMS. Since the waves are controlled by item, volume, and how the order will be packed, the WMS provides a lot of flexibility in setting up the waves to make the processing as efficient as possible. The WMS uses wireless terminals on board the turret trucks to direct picking of full pallets for each wave from the reserve storage area. These are dropped off at the pickup and deposit stations and gathered by walkie-riders for transport to the packing area. If loads under a palletful are needed, these are pulled from the forward pick area. Small products are placed into totes. Walkie-riders pull fast-moving SKUs from floor-level racks, and turret trucks get slow-moving items from upper racks. When SKUs require more than a full pallet, a full pallet is pulled from reserve and the remainder is pulled from the forward pick area. Once the f
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Approximate Word count = 1494
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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